Before the redevelopment bubble burst, Santa Ana was hauling in more redevelopment dollars than any other O.C. city — $51.4 million a year. The cost of repaying its redevelopment debt? About $30 million a year.

Next up was Anaheim, which got $47 million a year in redevelopment dollars, and paid about $21 million a year in redevelopment debt.

Little Westminster was No. 3, getting $36.1 million a year, and paying about $7.5 million in redevelopment debt.

Together, O.C. redevelopment agencies racked up debt exceeding $2 billion, and it will take many years to pay it off. Until that’s done, they’ll keep receiving at least a portion of the property tax money they used to get from redevelopment.

It’s cool to look at the two pieces back to back. Here’s redevelopment revenues — “tax increment” in redevelopment parlance:

And here’s the annual debt payments for the same year:

ANNUAL DEBT PAYMENTS 2010-11

The money coming in was considerably greater than the money going out to battle blight. That’s one of the chief criticisms one heard from redevelopment critics.

“While many examples of successful redevelopment projects exist in the county, there are also examples of abuse and poor performance,” the grand jury said. “The major problem identified by this study is three-fold: Lack of effective oversight; Lack of local citizen input; and Lack of a non-judicial means to settle disputes between the city or agency and the citizens.”

There are examples of redevelopment done right, the grand jury said — and we’ll be bringing you some of that in coming days. But after Proposition 13 — and before redevelopment agencies were dissolved on Feb. 1 — redevelopment became one of the few sources of new money cities could tap, and the Legislature allowed them to essentially run a bit wild. “Redevelopment activities, for example, have included providing flood control measures, financing housing for low-income families, assisting in the construction of sports arenas, and operating amusement parks. The overall result of these influences is that, although a well-defined definition of blight exists, little effort is made to control compliance. Redevelopment agencies have been able to justify projects that have little or no relationship to addressing blight.”

The controversial use of eminent domain — where the government condemns private property against the owner’s will for allegedly public purposes — has been a flash point in many parts of California, but not so much here, the grand jury said.

“Among Orange County redevelopment agencies, eminent domain is a little used practice and has not been a significant problem,” it said. “Where used, it is considered a last resort or in fact is welcomed by the property owner as the most desirable method of disposing of the property. Out of the 24 agencies surveyed, eight reported that they have eminent domain powers and three have used eminent domain to acquire property in the last five years.”

There are machinations happening in Sacramento Wednesday on redevelopment clean-up legislation. Suffice to say the battle between cities — and the state Department of Finance, which has said “no, non, nyet” to many redevelopment debts that cities insist must be paid — continues. We’ll keep you posted.

Sforza birthed the OC Watchdog column aiming to keep a critical (but good-humored) eye on governments and nonprofits, large and small. It won first place for public service reporting from the California Newspaper Publishers Association in 2010. Sforza contributed to the OCR's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of fertility fraud at UC Irvine, covered what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in America‘s history, and is the author of "The Strangest Song," the first book to tell the story of a genetic condition called Williams syndrome and the extraordinary musicality of many of the people who have it. She earned her M.F.A. from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television, and enjoys making documentaries, including the OCR's first: "The Boy Monk," a story that was also told as a series in print. Watchdogs need help: Point us to documents that can help tell stories that need to be told, and we'll do the rest.

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